Basheera Khan writes about social media, cool new software and all things geek. In addition to blogging for the Telegraph, she is an occasional contributor to TechCrunch Europe and a freelance user experience consultant. Bash is a South African living in London. Yes, another one. More about Basheera.

Alan Turing was the greatest computer scientist ever born in Britain. He laid the foundations of computing, helped break the Nazi Enigma code and told us how to tell whether a machine could think.

He was also gay. He was prosecuted for being gay, chemically castrated as a 'cure', and took his own life, aged 41.

The British Government should apologize to Alan Turing for his treatment and recognize that his work created much of the world we live in and saved us from Nazi Germany. And an apology would recognize the tragic consequences of prejudice that ended this man's life and career.

It was one of the worst individual injustices of our time. And I am dismayed at the reaction from commenters who say that apologising at this stage will do nothing, achieve nothing, have no impact on anyone, make no difference to the world we live in. They are completely wrong.

This is about humanity acknowledging a grievous wrong to an entire body of people whose lives and liberties were diminished by ignorance and prejudice.

Think of it as the refactoring of history. It doesn't change what happened, or how it happened. But it gives us all a more compassionate sense of why it happened, and allows us the chance to ensure it never happens again.

If the Prime Minister does apologise, it will go a long way to mend the fabric of our society, which even in this liberal country and these relatively enlightened times, is still frayed and flawed.